The Long-Distance Runner: An Autobiography

Chronicles the author's rise through the world of British theater, exploring the joys and sorrows of his personal life, including his marriage, affairs, and friendships

A lean, mean, and ultimately engaging autobiography by the British producer-director, finished six years before his death from AIDS in 1991. Richardson's story is of a pushing, prickly, fiercely ambitious apothecary's son from Yorkshire for whom waiting on his father's customers was ``an embarrassment and a threat,'' who went up to Oxford (``I see ropes--nothing but ropes,'' he effused while creating an experimental production of Peer Gynt) and then made an indelible mark on the British stage, long moldering, with the founding of the Royal Court Theatre, which launched landmark productions of plays such as Look Back In Anger and The Entertainer. Richardson went on to work a great deal in film, flying by the seat of his pants in A Taste of Honey, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The Loved One, Tom Jones, and others. Because his work consumed him, his life-story is primarily a project-by-project serial telling, enlivened by savagely amusing pronouncements on the luminaries in his milieu who either rankled him or didn't suitably serve his artistic vision. Famous bodies are everywhere. Richardson is strongest here when the haughty boy from Yorkshire goes ga-ga over Jeanne Moreau and gets what his father might have called a taste of his own medicine, and he's interesting but idiosyncratic in writing of Vanessa Redgrave, the rather magnificent wife he spurned (and toward whom he reveals a great deal--or so it might seem--of unconscious hostility). Oddly, there's not one reference to Redgrave's politics, though they certainly affected Richardson's life and nerves; nor does the author acknowledge his own widely reputed bisexuality. Introduced by Joan Didion, with a foreword by Richardson's daughter Natasha, who says she found the memoir in a cupboard on the day of her father's death. Meanwhile, Didion claims it was given to Natasha by the manuscript typist. They should have talked- -though Richardson sparkles here nonetheless. (Thirty-two pages of b&w photos) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This book is a series of personal reminiscences by film and theater director Richardson. The manuscript was found by his daughter, Natasha, after his tragic death from AIDS. While Natasha had some doubt that Richardson intended it for publication, readers will be glad she made the decision to provide a last intimate look at the life of one of the creative geniuses of theater and cinema. In spite of Richardson's slight tendency to ramble, his personal insights into cinema productions like Tom Jones (1963) and personalities like Jeanne Moreau make this a most worthwhile book. This book should appeal to both the theater professional and the student of theater or cinema, and any library with a theater history or cinema history collection should consider purchasing it. Additionally, because it is so informal and personal, it will attract many casual readers as well.
- Jon P. Cobes, Central Wyoming Coll., Riverton
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Movie and stage director Richardson (Tom Jones, Hotel New Hampshire) writes an autobiography that is at once compelling and disappointing. His childhood of separation and alienation is reminiscent of a Dickens novel both in tone and in description, and the British class system receives much of the blame. But the story and mood change as Richardson attends Oxford and begins his directorial apprenticeship. His personality, so vividly revealed in the introductory chapters, is diminished if not exactly lost. There is much behind-the-scenes information about the stage and movie industry, and Richardson is not afraid to explore the personalities of important actors and actresses, such as Laurence Olivier. The intricacies of moviemaking concern much of the book's last half, from the financing of movies to working with quirky (when not outright deranged) actors and actresses. Of Richardson the person there are many details but there is little resonance--except in a few places, as where he admits that Tom Jones, his biggest success and recipient of the Academy Award for Best Picture was "botched" and "incomplete." Still, a strong picture of the acting industry and what it takes to succeed. Brian McCombie